Re: Re: Re: About time we go over to ARM processors(19/01/18 10:26:45)

Interesting link. Thanks.

In all good medicine there is a lot of of trust involved. The good doctor and the good patient are honest (always, except when there is a good medical reason for misinforming the patient - here is where the art aspect comes in) and hard working (when necessary).

Medical devices can be sabotaged no doubt, and sabotage or plain mistakes can kill or injure the patient. But prescribing the wrong drug, or taking the wrong pills or the wrong dosage, can also kill or maim the patient. Being sick is risky - because of the disease itself, and additionally because of the treatment. Surgery is the most obvious example. Surgical technique is a lot about minimising risk.

Cooking too is about trust.

"Mithridates then took out some poison that he always carried next to his sword, and mixed it. There two of his daughters, who were still girls growing up together, named Mithridates and Nysa, who had been betrothed to the kings of [Ptolemaic] Egypt and of Cyprus, asked him to let them have some of the poison first, and insisted strenuously and prevented him from drinking it until they had taken some and swallowed it. The drug took effect on them at once; but upon Mithridates, although he walked around rapidly to hasten its action, it had no effect, because he had accustomed himself to other drugs by continually trying them as a means of protection against poisoners. These are still called the Mithridatic drugs." (Wikipedia)

If software manipulation really does become a widespread cause of death there might be a subdiscipline of forensic medicine - medical device computer forensics, to look for traces of software manipulation in the implanted device (think Stuxnet). If there are no suspected murders, I'd say this is mainly FUD. I think poisoning by syringe and injection needle is more common.